


No Place Like Home

by flawedamythyst



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Joe's hat, M/M, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28453977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Nicky has been bouncing through alternate universe for a while, trying to get home to his one, and to his Joe.Written for coffeeandcake96.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 9
Kudos: 105





	No Place Like Home

There was the now-familiar flash of green light and feeling of being slammed through the air, and when Nicky opened his eyes, he was in a high-tech lab.

At first glance it might have been the lab he’d started off this merry carousel through multiple different dimensions. Certainly the Andy here, who was hovering near the buttons on the machine and frowning at Nicky, looked like his Andy. The right hair, her labrys strapped to her back, no unexpected tattoos covering her entire face and body. Nile was next to her, also examining Nicky and clearly trying to work out if he was the right one.

Just as Nicky’s heart was filling with hope that maybe this whole thing was finally over, his eyes fell on Joe, and his hopes were dashed.

“This isn't my home,” he said tiredly, and the other three slumped as well, clearly having hoped he was their Nicky, back in his right place.

“Are you sure?” asked Joe, sounding sick with misery, which was exactly how Nicky would feel until he had his own Joe back in his arms. “You look just like my Nicky.”

Nicky gave a helpless shrug. “You look a lot my Joe,” he said, “but the hat is wrong.”

Joe blinked. “Your Joe doesn’t have this hat?” he asked, reaching up to tweak the brim of the baseball hat.

“Oh, he does,” said Nicky, “but he doesn’t wear it like that.” He glance at Andy. “Are you able to send me on?”

“It takes a while to recharge,” she said, moving over the controls of the machine.

“Wait,” said Joe, “wait, Andy, don’t-” He reached up and pulled his hat off, then turned it around and put it on again, this time backwards, with a tiny curl poking through the hole.

Nicky felt his eyes go wide. “Joe,” he breathed. “My Yusuf.” He stumbled forward the few steps between them and took Joe’s face in his hands, running over every familiar inch of it. Joe wrapped his arms around Nicky to hold him close, and beamed at him.

“The last Nicky told him he looked like an ‘90s boyband reject,” said Nile, somewhere outside the bubble of Nicky-and-Joe. “He was kinda mean, actually.”

That fitted. Nicky had passed through the world that Nicky must have been from, and there hadn’t been a Joe there at all. As far as he’d been able to work out, if Yusuf al-Kaysani had been born there at all, he hadn’t been immortal and likely died at the gates Jerusalem without ever resurrecting. Nicky would probably be a bit bitter if he’d moved through a bunch of dimensions with a Joe in each one, and yet didn’t have his own to go home to.

“I missed you,” he murmured against Joe’s lips, then pulled him in for a kiss. This was it, this was exactly where he’d been trying so hard to get back to ever since that first trip to another dimension. He was finally home.


End file.
